Wireless electronics products are used in a variety of applications under a number of varying environmental conditions. Wireless products, for example, cellular products, embedded in wireless base stations must be able to function optimally within a broad temperature range. Specifically, wireless base stations are positioned in and operate in environments with a range of temperature from about minus forty degrees Celsius (-40.degree. C.) to about fifty-two degrees Celsius (52.degree. C.).
Current efforts to provide sufficient heating and cooling regimes to wireless base stations have several deficiencies. One effort includes the use of conduction cooling through a heat sink. However, since wireless base stations may, due to their geographical positioning, operate anywhere within the large environmental temperature range (-40.degree. C. to 52.degree. C.), designing a heat sink for optimal performance over that temperature range is difficult. Particularly, a heat sink designed to operate optimally at higher temperatures typically will not operate optimally at lower temperatures. Heaters have also often been added to the conduction cooling devices for heating wireless base station components in lower environmental temperatures. However, in most applications there is insufficient room for an adequately sized heater capable of heating the base station electronic components to a desired temperature range.
An additional problem encountered with conventional approaches is that some electronic components have very high power densities which create localized high heat densities which are often not well dissipated by current approaches.
There exists a need for a heating and cooling apparatus which operates optimally across a broad environmental temperature range, which fits conveniently within wireless base stations in proximity to the electronic components, and which adequately dissipates the high heat densities caused by the heat generated by the electronic components and which adequately heats the electronic components when necessary to maintain desired operating parameters.